MLB To Youth: We Hate Your Style Of Dress

I think we can all agree that baseball would be better if managers didn't wear uniforms1 and all dressed like Connie Mack.

Major League Baseball doesn't allow managers to wear three-piece suits anymore, and now it won't even let them wear hoodies! Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon can no longer wear the pullover hoodie he usually wears on cold days.

Was he aping too much of Bill Belichick's style? No, Maddon explains: It's all about MLB not understanding the youth of today.

"All I know is that it's a comfortable piece of clothing, I think it's attractive, if you're looking for younger fan, I think those are the people that really are attracted to something like that, too. Listen, I will state my case because I think I can, but I will follow the rules, too."

Maddon added that when he first wore the hoodie. the quality wasn't so hot. "The quality has been raised, it's more of a shiny kind of material now that I know presents well," he told the AP. "I've seen them on TV, it presents really well."

Yes, major league baseball will allow players2 to wear batting helmets that look like they've been used to clean up bong resin3 on off days, but they won't let managers wear hoodies on TV that present really well. We all know that MLB just hates the kiddies and their hoodies and their hippity-hop. Fight the power, Joe!

1 I doubt we can all agree on this. But I already wrote my first sentence, and found that photo of Connie Mack, and I'm not going back to change it. But coaches and managers wearing uniforms: Stupid. I will not relent on this. Except player-managers, of course.2 Such as Jorge Posada, the future Hall of Famer who just went out to the mound five times as I was writing this footnote.3 Happy 4/20, everyone!

There is a lot of money for MLB to make selling proper jackets, and when schmucks like us watch baseball on teevee, the only human wearing said jacket is the manager. Jackets must have far higher markups than hoodies? I have no idea.

I whole-heartedly agree with Maddon. The material that many of the new Majestic MLB items are made out of is quite possibly the greatest fabric since pussyflannel*. I wear my 2008 playoffs sweatshirt so often that the pills now have pills on them. HAWT

What do Corbin Bernsen, Theo Huxtable, Prince Fielder's GAMBLOR-worshiping deadbeat dad, some whitey hockey dude, little Eli Manning and Brooke Shields have in common? They were all robbed at gunpoint for their hats and jackets.

Nick,
I have that sweatshirt. It does rock. I was expecting to have to wear it a lot more but it's been warm for the two games I have gone to. I am going to tonight and the game time temp is supposed to be 70. Oh well, I will get a lot of use out of it in late October and ealry November.

WILL you all go home and throw on some classic Gang Starr in memory of the almighty Guru, who passed away after a long battle with cancer? Start here, then check this out, then wrap it up over here. Respect.